Sunday 7 Oct 2012

Sunday Reading: 2 John 1:9-12

Key Verse: 2 John 1:12
12  Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.

Devotion:
We are always going to be faced with people who say all the right things in life but do not follow God’s ways. We may well be tempted, side tracked or even persuaded by people who seem to be able to make sense when others are not. But what we do have to be careful of is whether they are following God’s ways or the ways of the world. The worlds ways will sound sweet and sound until they are compared to God’s ways, then we will see them in their true light.

God has given us His Word so that we can identify our ways and see His ways – by comparing the two we can identify where we go wrong, where we depart from His ways on go off in the ways of the world. If we just had His Word and nothing else, that should be enough, but in reality we would still have problems. We are human and part of being human is that we need companionship in order to help us through certain things in life. Just being able to pick up a book and read about things does help, but after we have read that book we are left with holes that can only be filled by people bringing us that same word.

God has given us a commission to take His Word out there with us and give it to others. He has not just said that we should speak to people and then leave but to discuss, reason and encourage others with that Word just as we were in the beginning too. God wants us to share this Word that He has given us, and sharing means that we need to give that Word to people with meaning and with heart.

For the Apostle this meant that he wanted not to just give them a letter to explain things but to actually meet them face to face and discuss things through with them. Now don’t get me wrong, when I was a bit younger I used to love getting hand written notes from my girlfriend in the rather unique green ink she used to write with. But being able to see her face to face was so much more than being able to read those letters.  God wants us to be like that with taking His Word out to others – to be able to take it to others face to face and not just through special books or even hand written notes. God’s Word is worth so much more…

Points to Ponder:
What do you find special in communication?

Are you communicating God’s Word effectively?